ICT Pulse: Niel, thank you again for taking the time to share your insights with us. To start, give us a quick recap of what have been the most prevalent types of incidents in the Barbados and/or in the wider Caribbean region over the past year or so?
Niel Harper: Over the past year, there has been a substantive increase in ransomware attacks in Barbados and across the Caribbean. This is pretty much in line with the global trend, where we saw massive ransomware attacks such as NotPetya and WannaCry that impacted over 500,000 organizations and resulted in damages and losses in excess of USD$400 million. Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean were not spared from the wrath of these attacks.
ICTP: Has the threat landscape changed over the past year? Are there any particular areas of concern that you have for Caribbean organizations, or the region as a whole?
NH: Yes, most definitely the threat landscape has changed over the last year. Firstly, there has been a shift towards attacks on the underlying Internet infrastructure. Hence, Caribbean service providers need to implement protections in their networks to address core routing and DNS security, among others. Additionally, we are seeing hackers using social media platforms as an attack vector, and such attacks are routinely compromising mobile phones. Last but perhaps most significant, state-sponsored threat actors have become more and more active. We are seeing increasing attacks against critical infrastructure and supply chains. For example, cyberwar actors will seek to attack targets that result in maximum disruption, economic upheaval, and even public safety issues (e.g. airports, public transit, power grids, nuclear facilities, smart cities, etc.). There will be continued attacks targeting democratic processes such as electronic voting machines, online voter registration, party or politician websites, and other such platforms. Sadly, Caribbean (and global) enterprises will get caught up in state-led or state-sponsored attacks, and with far-reaching economic impacts.
ICTP: Over the past year, ransomware incidents still appeared to be occurring across the region. Are they still as huge a threat?
NH: As stated in my earlier comment, ransomware is most definitely still a threat, and there are a couple of reasons for this. For one, there are numerous techniques available to hackers for initiating ransomware attacks such as spam, phishing, rootkits on legitimate website, traffic redirection, and others. Ransomware also remains a lucrative business for hackers. There’s also no shortage of targets for ransomware attackers, specifically when you consider that many healthcare providers, government agencies and educational institutions simply don’t have the resources to adequately respond to cyber threats […]
The entire interview can be found on the ICT Pulse website at: https://bit.ly/2JzAFce
Niel Harper 